people want. 65% of the american people agree with president obama's tax plan, and republicans lost miserably in the election. now is the time to come to a compromise, but boehner is holding out for -- for his own -- his own survival. >> stephanie: so if you had to guess today, representative would you say we are going over the cliff? >> i don't want people to think as of december 31st we going to fall into the ocean and the world will come to an end. we could just let this expire of course people don't pay their taxes right on january 2nd. in reality if we come back on january 3rd and reinstate the middle class tax cuts then the american people don't have to suffer like they would -- >> stephanie: right. i agree with you. that's what i keep saying. i don't know why we're even talking about accepting a lower tax rate on the wealthy or any of that and i know a lot of progressive lawmakers are saying don't go there, don't go there with medicare or social security, right? >> exactly. raising the medicare age doesn't give us any savings. we can improve our safety net programs. in fact really thes